> Punishing in public

The junior dev is watching, and got the benefit of seeing that you value his time

> managing via Slack

Far preferable to arranging a face to face meeting over this low impact, simple procedural issue

> being a speed bump just because

Defending your team's finite attention and time from random direct requests from the business is a major part of your job as an EM.

> "scope creep" bogeyman

There's good reason scopes are defined and communicated, and deadlines and expectations are managed.

> far preferable to arranging a face to face meeting over this low impact, simple procedural issue

Whenever an issue involves people, slack simply won't suffice. There's too much good will lost on either side. "No worries if not [grumble grumble]!"

This isn't procedural, like sending an invoice to the wrong email address. This is a vp overstepping and threatening the success of another employee. They know what they're doing.